Wrong place, wrong time

She walked off the elevator into a murder then slithered in fear down a wall of the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was all Vanice Dale could do to put her frightened head into her shaking hands and cry.

The 20-year-old Clifton girl swears to her family and friends she never looked up to see who shot 18-year-old Wayne Kennedy to death in a hallway inside the Park Hill apartments May 30.

So what's she doing in a jail cell charged with murder and robbery?

Vanice didn't do herself any favors when she ran off to Atlanta with 32-year-old Scott Fields, an ex-con from Park Hill Avenue who did time for the 1994 manslaughter of a Silver Lake man.

When cops tracked them down in August and brought them back to Staten Island, Fields was charged with pulling the trigger on Kennedy and Miss Dale was accused of luring the teen and his uncle to Park Hill from a party in Brooklyn, where the uncle was said to have flashed money and jewelry.

But word on the streets says another woman set up Kennedy and his uncle. That woman's first name is being knocked around Park Hill like a cheap pinata.

Those same tongues also claim Fields was at a party for his daughter when the shooting occurred.

It's just that the way Fields is manipulating Miss Dale behind bars, her alibi appears more credible than his.

Fields has already been admonished for chatting with Miss Dale while their attorneys huddled with a prosecutor and a judge during their arraignment hearing.

And sources close to the case said Fields tries to feed Miss Dale's ear every time the pair get near each other in the pens at state Supreme Court, St. George.

Courthouse sources said efforts have been stepped up to keep Fields as far away as possible from Miss Dale in the holding cells.

"He's trying to do everything in his power to drag her down with him," one source said.
Both are looking at maximum life prison sentences if convicted of murder at trial.

But prosecutors have an offer for Miss Dale. Plead guilty. Serve a year in prison. And give up the name of the killer.

Which says that prosecutors don't have a lot on Miss Dale if they're only offering a year. They may be better off tracking down that other woman.

Miss Dale was hunched down on the wall afraid to look up. She only heard the gunshots. She didn't see who pulled the trigger.